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Hello Obsidian Entertainment,
I'm sure I am not alone when I say I would like to see realistic scope mechanics in OuterWorlds. I hope the developers look at this and take a page from modders books and just make the base game have realistic scopes, which means to me, No-Overlays when looking through scopes, just straight up first-person scope sights without the bloody black box with a dodgy scope artwork in the middle. please please please support me on this one ladies and gents.
Much love, OverlordTJ

In POE the “resting system”mostly just for recharge the spells ...
But it could be more fun and have more functions :
1.When team set up a camp fire we could have an option to progress a conversation with your teammates or skip it to rest ， most random talking could happen in here this way we don‘t miss any of them by accident ，also can make the team interact with each other more often ,so we don't need to talk to them individually
2.when you do like the party-talking ，then you or teammates will gain some benefits e.g.：
If you know what's their favorite food is ,you can let them eat that and they'll get more benefits form that kind of foods etc.
3.Inns should have more “darts game” elements .
you can choose a table and order some foods and drinks then your teammates will say some funny things，if they don't like the foods that you dished then they definitely will let you know，just for fun，also can make the inn more alive(and Useable)
4. this all can be done by something like “”pic-dialogues“” which is how you interact with the world in POE
Just some ideas and what 's you guys think on this ? ( as always ,sorry for my poor English )

Hi all, I sincerely believe one of the most important and critical points of game design is the difficulty setting. Unfortunately today many games have simply lowered the bar so much that you literally have no fun playing them and you just experience them without having any feeling of achievement. On the other hand one of the reason the market is going that way is that people actually approve of this by purchasing these games.
But it is pretty obvious that what really gives a feeling of achievement is when the difficulty is such that you can only achieve victory, not thanks to the "skill points" that you have grinded for hours (in which case anyone can do) but rather thanks to the actual skills that you have learned and that differentiates you, a veteran, from someone using the same characters but without the experience necessary to use them effectively.
A higher difficulty setting must also be more rewarding (xp bonus, special item rewards, recognition badges etc) to the player using it but it must also be a commitment and must therefore contain some elements that prevent the player from switching back to an easier difficulty when faced with a challenge too hard. This takes away all the point of having a higher difficulty. One last thing I would like to talk about here is that there is also an element of "immersion" brought by the difficulty level: if you have unrealistic things that can happen just because you've upped the difficulty level it prevents you from feeling involved in the game. Hard doesn't necessarily mean unfair, but rather unforgiving. So the little goblin is still a one hit kill and can't really hurt you, but if you let your mage get hit by it or get surrounded by them then you're going to get punished more hardly for it.
Great examples of perfect applications of difficulty level design would include: - demon/dark souls series for fair yet unforgiving difficulty (you die, your fault, and yet game can be beaten by lvl 1 char by very skilled players) - diablo 2 for the difficulty escalation (always challenging, even more after completion) - metal gear series for difficulty selection options (moves from "enjoyable but easy" to "very realistic and very hard" in european extreme)
Personally that's what I enjoy: realistic and difficult, fair but unforgiving, and ironman (when I have the time)
What are your preferences?

Just a few minor details that I found odd while trying to immerse myself into the game world (which I love so far.) Some of these may be impractical to fix for PoE at this point, but maybe you can take them into consideration for your next game
Names Prescience
Hovering the mouse over NPCs shows their name before our character even knows who they are. Maybe Expert Mode can include an option to disable that and show names as "???" until the character has introduced themselves? Not all conversations begin with an introduction though, so this may require changing some of the dialogue to include them. Right now I'm working around it by assuming it's because of our special powers
Permanently Unsheathed Weapons
Does anybody else feel awkward walking* around in public places with your flaming swords and shotguns out at all times? An option to sheathe them would be easy to implement and make us feel more civil.
Always running everywhere
Speaking of walking, how come we can't ever take it slow and just stroll at a leisurely pace? A middle ground between the constant running and sneaky scouting. While we're at it can we get an option to disable pausing when we open the journal? It'd be nice to read stuff while the party continues to its destination.
Stronghold
Right now the whole stronghold mechanic feels kinda tacked on, especially the very first construction that gets completed in an instant. Maybe have a narrative vignette introduce the event as a part of the story, instead of having it just happen like that through the UI? And where are the people that carry out the constructions, our "patrols" and stuff?

Playing Torment I find that I am perfectly content with the graphical fidelity on display, in terms of quality I can see that it can be improved in many ways, but it is in no way hampering the game for me, especially with the Widescreen mod installed. (Much obliged dear mod makers.) What is strange is that sometimes I am finding stylised, graphically inferior pixelated games preferable, for instance the remake of the Monkey Island game just do not have the charm of the originals, for me it was worth switching to the original mode even though I lost the voice acting.
Now is this a preference between stylised and more realistic graphics, or is it merely a personal preference regarding art design?
There is no doubt that games are approaching stunning almost realistic levels of fidelity, but is that needed? Personally I found the art design and the almost watercolour like backdrops of the first Witcher game to be just as stunning as the second games admittedly beautifully rendered world. Have we passed the point where graphics are fit for purpose, where they do the job they are designed for adequately, and are now adding bells and whistles that are not really needed? Of course i'm not saying that the Witcher 3 does not need to pursue graphical excellence, merely that perhaps smaller developers do not need to.
Sometimes simple artistic and stylised graphics can and do seem to trump realism, remaining relevant and striking while what were the latest and most sharp of visuals are quickly tossed aside by the next challenger on the throne of graphical fidelity. When the next generation of cutting edge graphics arrives the Cryengine games will most probably be judged in retrospect as, pretty and impressive for their time, while games that have a stylised aesthetic, a unique art design and an innovative approach may be judged as timeless, such as Torments Gaudi inspired Sigil.
Of course ideally one can have both.
So in summary what do you prefer? A strong aesthetic approach to art design, a level of realism that remains at the cutting edge, stylisation that never ages and sets a unique tone or some mix of the above?

Hi there -- I wanted to open a discussion on what sorts of statistics should be modelled in weapons, and why. What should the numbers inherent a weapon do? How realistic or simple should this be? Should this be simplified to fit gaming and fantasy tropes? Should it be informed by realism? What are the pros and cons of each?
Here are some quotes, sans images, from a guy who knows what he is talking about on different forum on this topic:
"Size (thus suitability for different types of fighting, as in indoors / outdoors, in a grapple or not) Reach (largely a function of size) as in, a 'To hit' bonus. Ways to hurt people (piercing, cutting, smashing... and how good they are at each). In DnD terms this is three things, attack type, basic damage, and critical hit threat range. Defensive value (as in, an 'Armor Class' bonus like a shield gets) as I said before, there is really no reason not to model this. Speed (trickier to handle - see below) Armor - Piercing ability (some weapons were made specifically for piercing armor) usually fairly simple though standard DnD rules combine evasion with armor so that makes it harder. Grappling ability (many weapons had hooks or spikes designed to help with grappling from a distance, the classic examples being the halberd or the bill)
You can start with the actual features of the weapons, and then try to see what you could fit into a game. The European longsword 1300 - 1600 In real life a longsword is made to cut and stab with equal efficiency, as well as fend off enemy attacks. If you know what you are doing (i.e. a Feat) you can bash with the hilt and choke up (half-sword) to make it better for armor-piercing (stabs only). It's long and has pretty good hand protection making it good for defense, it has pretty good reach, and it's pretty fast partly due to being light (most real ones are about 3 lbs) and partly due to having an iron pommel, which helps a lot with balance. Hard to break. The late Medieval dagger 1200-1500 In real life, a dagger is very fast weapon. Most types (like the roundel depicted here) are made to stab primarily, though some others are for cutting too. It's got limited defensive ability, just a little reach (better than nothing though, since Medieval daggers were often a foot or more long). Unlike in almost all Role Playing Games, Daggers are extremely lethal! US Army stats on bayonett wounds and the FBI statistics on injuries from violent crimes show a knife with blade more than 8" long is one of the most lethal things you can get attacked with, statistically, and most Medieval Daggers were a lot longer than that (and more strongly made, less likely to snap). Daggers, unlike swords, tend to be good at armor-piercing (and / or getting around armor by finding gaps). Very hard to break. The Medieval Battle Axe In real life, an axe is good at cutting, mainly. Almost opposite to the cliche, battle axes tend to be made lighter (with thinner blades) and better balanced than axes made for cutting wood, but they are not as balanced as a sword. For a big (I'm thinking Danish / Viking style) axe, medium reach, fairly low speed (smaller axes would be much faster), some value for defense but limited hand protection makes that a little dicey. Due to their shape axes are also good for hooking shield rims and arms and so on, i.e. grappling from a distance. Some axes are made with special armor-piercing features (a back spike) but these are rare on older ones. The haft can be broken. Medieval Spear Very good reach, not as good speed, very good at thrusting, but the ones with larger blades can cut well too, pretty good for defense if used two-handed. Pretty good at armor-piercing. Not good at close range. Staff Blunt damage only, very good reach, very good defense, not as good at very close range. Mace Heavier (but not as much as you might think) than a sword or an axe, medium reach, medium defensive value (enhanced somewhat by the inertia of the thing) bludgeon damage only, good at destroying armor. Indestructible. So converting these into generic stats: Longsword Reach 4, Defense 3, Speed 3, cut / thrust, damage 1-10, crit threat 19-20, armor piercing and bludgeon damage ability by Feat. Normally too long to use at close (grapple) range except with special Feat. Hardness 6 Dagger Reach 1, Defense 1, Speed 5, thrust, damage 1-8, crit threat 18-20, armor-piercing. Hardness 8 Battle Axe Reach 3, Defense 2, Speed 2, cut, damage 1-12, crit threat 18-20, grapple +1 (from melee distance). Hardness 4. Flanged Mace Reach 2, Defense 3, Speed 1, bludgeon, damage 1-10, crit threat 18-20, armor-piercing +2. Hardness 12. Spear Reach 5, Defense 3, Speed 2, thrust, damage 1-8, crit threat 18-20, armor-piercing. Too long to use at close (grapple) range. Hardness 4 Staff Reach 5, Defense 4, Speed 3, bludgeon, damage 1-6, crit threat 20. Too long to use at close (grapple) range. Hardness 4. Now in DnD you might only be able to model a couple of these features, but it wouldn't necessarily add a lot more complexity to say, most weapons can be used for defense as well as offense, swords can stab as well as cut, short weapons can be used in grapple, and so on. Differentiating the weapons a little bit (in ways other than just damage) makes them a bit more interesting and more useful to flesh out the personality of different characters, monsters and NPC's, IMO."
Back to me... now, that is a very realistic way of looking at these things, but it doesn't necessarily feel like fantasy, and being that realistic might make gameplay worse or better -- in a broad theoretical sense, what sorts of things SHOULD weapons be useful in doing, for the benefit of the game?
There is also the question of, 'When pairing down what statistics weapons should have, should you start from a fantasy/cultural consciousness as your basic starting point for what attributes to have, or should you start from a realism/historic starting point? Assume that you end up with the same amount of relevant attributes at the end -- 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever. What is the better starting point, and why?'

One thing that bugs me is that you see (for example) Rapiers used against armor...
Which always bugs the hell out of me! They are not good for that! Estocs are, rapiers aren't.
What I would like to see is a clarification of what weapons are civilian weapons and what weapons are military... ie, military weapons are useful in battle and when people are wearing some form of armor. Civilian weapons, because they *aren't* useful against (say) the armored Town Guard, can be worn for civilian self defense. And people wearing large amounts of armor would get stopped in town by guards who are like, 'Who are you planning on murdering, bub?'
If you want a rapier-looking weapon for use in war, use a cut-and-thrust sword. Rapiers and Smallswords, despite being piercing weapons, are terrible against armor...
But I would like to see people having a particular 'walk around town' kit, due to legal restrictions, for at least some towns... only light chain that can be hidden under shirts, non-military swords, whatever clubs you can find, no helms, civilian swords, etc.

The map of Faerun makes no sense. There's deserts in places where you'd expect jungles, rivers with no credible source, badlands where by rights should be forest.
I know, it's a fantasy world. so maybe I shouldn't care. But I do notice these things, surely I'm not the only one?